“My son, Jamiel Andre Shaw II, was murdered by a DREAMer, a DACA recipient, a child brought to this country by no fault of his own,” Mr. Shaw told Representative Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) while testifying before a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee panel. Shaw was murdered in 2008, before the Obama created the DACA program in the run up to the 2012 election cycle, but — as a young person brought into the country as a child, Shaw’s eventual murderer would likely have qualified for DACA status. “The illegal alien dreamer that murdered my son only served four months of an eight month sentence for assault with a deadly weapon and battery on a police officer,” Shaw said. “He was released from the county jail the day before he executed my son. Why was this violent illegal alien allowed to walk the streets of America instead of being deported?” “Do black lives really matter or does it matter only if you are shot by a white person or a white policeman?” he added, before alluding to the ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ saying that became popular following the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo. “My son was shot in the head by an illegal alien gang banger while he lay on his back with his hands up. he still shot him through his hand into his head and killed him.”
While the protest ostensibly was about the #BlackLivesMatter movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, it was hijacked as so many such protests are by the anti-Israel contingent, just like in Ferguson and to a lesser extent in New York City during the Eric Garner protests. Subsequent to that initial report, we have learned that it was much worse than originally thought. The tactics used were designed to cause maximum traffic disruption and mayhem, including protester cars being abandoned on the roadway, resulting in several car crashes and emergency vehicles being blocked. The activists used a dangerous tactic of blocking both directions initially, making the scene inaccessible initially to emergency vehicles... It’s nothing short of a miracle that there were no serious injuries and that no ambulances had to be redirected, as happened in Boston, or worse, were stuck in the traffic jam.It turns out my fears were realized, as the parents of a three-year old girl in medical distress have threatened suit against Stanford University, whose students constituted most of the blockaders (h/t Instapundit via The College Fix). The Stanford Daily student newspaper reports:
Over 100 Stanford students and community members demonstrating against police brutality temporarily shut down the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge Monday afternoon, snarling the evening commute. The group made their way on eastbound and westbound lanes of state Highway 92 on the bridge at the high-rise around 4:50 p.m., CHP Officer Daniel Hill said. The protesters had been dropped off by cars on westbound lanes and briefly made their way to both sides of the freeway, he said. As of shortly after 5 p.m., eastbound lanes were reopened for motorists heading to Hayward but westbound lanes were still closed off for cars traveling to Foster City, Van Eckhardt said. Drivers were seen turning around at the toll plaza and going the wrong way on the bridge as CHP tried to find tow trucks to take away abandoned cars left on the bridge by protesters. The bridge was reopened shortly before 5:30 p.m.[caption id="attachment_113857" align="alignnone" width="600"] (Image via Farah Salazar Twitter)[/caption] In this video taken by a stalled driver on the other side of the highway, you can see how initially traffic was backed up on both sides creating a dangerous situation high on the span (the initial comments seem to indicate the drivers thought it was an abortion protest until they got closer):
Protesters affiliated with the activist group Black Lives Matter carried out their most audacious and disruptive demonstration yet in the Boston area Thursday, blocking the largest highway into the city, snarling rush-hour traffic, and stopping an ambulance in its tracks. In a pair of coordinated surprise actions that angered commuters, the protesters formed human barricades on Interstate 93 north of the city in Medford, and south, in Milton. Some put barrels filled with concrete on the highway and chained themselves to them. Twenty-nine protesters were arrested. The well-organized protests were carried out on Martin Luther King’s birthday by activists calling attention to the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police in Missouri and New York.The protesters are being prosecuted, more vigorously than usually happens, perhaps because at least two ambulances had to be rerouted due to the traffic jam.
Part of group seeking to hijack Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter protests into anti-Israel crusade....
Chalida Anusasananan, a teacher librarian at Everett Middle School who helped launch the resource guide, said both incidents and the subsequent protests have hit home with many public-school students in San Francisco, where nearly 90 percent are nonwhite. "We wanted to make sure that teachers had a means to teach what students were talking about with their families, or seeing on the news, or feeling every day," Anusasananan said. The resources, posted to the SFUSD's LibGuide page, includes the grand jury documents, poetry, videos and graphics, readings, and lesson plans and activities for elementary, middle and high school students. "What has to happen first and foremost is to create a safe space in the classroom for young people to talk about these things," said Karen Zapata, a humanities teacher at June Jordan High School and a co-founder of the grass-roots organization Teachers 4 Social Justice. "What's happened affects young people on an emotional level."I took a look at the online curriculum provided by the five teachers, and it's pretty much what you'd expect to see. I took some screenshots:
Officers were present on-site, and once the chanting started, moved to close almost 100 stores and several entrances to the mall. I say "moved to" as opposed to "were forced to" because the shutdown occurred as soon as the protests began, and there were no reports of some sort of violent instigating event; but perhaps it's a good thing the officers moved so quickly, based on how mall employees describe what happened next: From CBS Minnesota:Awesome. Mall of America is going to sue the protest puppet masters. http://t.co/xo4v6er0VN
— SFK (@stephenkruiser) December 23, 2014
Nate Bash works at one store near the rotunda, which he didn’t want us to name. “You had people yelling and screaming inside the mall that wanted out and you had people yelling and screaming outside the mall that wanted in,” he said. “I would say the mall was less than half as busy as it should have been considering what day it was.” “This was a powder keg just waiting for a match,” said Johnson.Police officers are busy using social media in an attempt to single out the organizers (arresting every single protester would be chaos, and not worth the trouble;) their goal is to target the organizers and participants who encouraged others to come to the mall even after officials made moves to emphasize that the Mall of America is privately owned, and those disrutping business would be asked to leave. Officials don't yet know how much money was lost during the shutdown, but they're throwing around words like "staggering," so I'm willing to assume that losses were well worth the effort to track these people down and file a lawsuit.
#policelivesmatter http://t.co/iks1NhqDlw
— Jimmy Two Times (@JimmyTwoTimes4) November 28, 2014
In the wake of events in the last weeks, including the non-indictment in the killing of Mike Brown and the senseless killings of Akai Gurley in New York and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, our communities are hurting and justifiably angered. What gives us hope in this moment of pain and anguish is the thousands of people who have poured into the streets of America to demand change.
From the #ShutItDown actions that have blocked major highways and intersections to the #BlackoutBlackFriday protests,the message is clear: No more business as usual. We can no longer do what we have always done and cooperate with a system that does not respect Black Lives. We will only get the change we want if we disrupt the daily order and insists that Black Lives Matter. If that means shutting down the entire country, that’s what we’ll do.
On Monday, Dec 1st people around the country will be walking out of their schools and places of work in solidarity with Ferguson communities across the country effected by police violence.
Where? It can be any central location at your school or the area where you work . Consider if there is a place that has relevance to social justice such as a monument, chapel, or scene of previous protests.
"Hands Up" refers to early reports that suggested Mike Brown had his hands up in the air as a sign of surrender when he was shot by police officer, Darren Wilson. Later, it was revealed this was not true.
Participants of "Hands Up Walk Out" were encouraged to post photos of their events online.
Not surprisingly, the largest turnouts seemed to have occurred at ivy league campuses and leftist organized marches, but even those were not particularly large. The rest? They were itty bitty. Take a look:I'm sure lots of other people took better pictures than this, but here is a glimpse of #HandsUpWalkout @Yale pic.twitter.com/76kUiy47Se — Heidi Knoblauch (@heidiknoblauch) December 1, 2014
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